International Fair Trial Day and Ebru Timtik Award 2023

Everyone has the right to a fair trial. Each year in June, we join with international bar associations and human rights groups to celebrate International Fair Trial Day.

The 2023 event took place in Mexico City on 14 June 2023.

Discussions focused on the systemic fair trial rights violations in Mexico and the interplay between this and other widespread human rights issues.

For more detail, read our joint statement (PDF 577 KB) – also available to download in Spanish (PDF 535 KB)

Ebru Timtik award

Ebru TimtikEbru Timtik was a Turkish lawyer who died during a hunger strike while in detention, protesting against a lack of fair trial guarantees in her own case and the cases of others in Turkey.

Every year, on International Fair Trial Day, the Ebru Timtik Award recognises an individual or an organisation who has made a significant contribution towards defending and promoting the right to a fair trial  in the country that International Fair Trial Day is focusing on each year.

This year’s recipients of the award were Alicia de los Ríos Merino and Ana Yeli Pérez Garrido.

Meet the 2023 awardees

Alicia de los Ríos Merino

Alicia was nominated for her dedication to achieving justice for the families of disappeared persons in Mexico following her mother’s disappearance in the 1970s.

She was a member of Eureka, the first collective in Mexico for relatives of disappeared persons, and since 2002 has assisted in seven cases of serious human rights violations before the Attorney General's Office of the Republic.

Currently, Alicia works as lecturer and researcher in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua.

Ana Yeli Pérez Garrido

Ana was nominated for her devotion to the protection and promotion of girls’ and women’s rights in Mexico, a country where gender-based violence results in the violent deaths of 11 women every day.

Over the course of her career, she has fought for the modification of regulatory frameworks and the creation of public policies for the prevention and punishment of violence against women and girls in Mexico.

She is the founder and director of Justicia Pro Persona, an organisation which promotes gender equality and social justice for victims of human rights violations.

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